


Take A Breath

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Attempted Murder, Cas Hugs Dean, Cas Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Cas to the rescue, Gen, Home Invasion, Tied-Up Dean Winchester, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 01:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20648948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: These guys don’t want anything from Dean other than to see him suffer and die.But Cas is coming.  All Dean has to do is take a breath.And hold it.





	Take A Breath

**Author's Note:**

> If suffocation will trigger you, please don’t read any further.

When they put him back down, duct taped within an inch of his life, Dean goes very still.

One of them has a trash bag in his hands, the big kind restaurants use, easily able to hold him the way they’ve got his ankles taped to his thighs, and his hands taped to his elbows behind him.

“You wanna be smart about this,” one of them says, like he’s telling Dean the best way to fish or collect coupons. “Don’t fight it. Stay still, and then take a few deep breaths before we shut up the bag. And keep calm as long as you can.”

“Why,” he snaps out. “You gonna let me out of it?”

He already knows that answer. It’s all he does know, though. Doesn’t know who these fucks are, how they got in the bunker to be lying in wait for him, what the hell they want.

Maybe this is what they want, and so it doesn’t matter if he struggles or holds his breath; once he goes in that bag, they’re not going to let him out.

But Cas wasn’t far behind him; he stopped off to get supplies at Dean’s request (okay, pie, fuck it, he sent Cas prayer-puppy eyes, and he thought if pie was ever going to get him killed, it’d be the cholesterol not this) and he’s going to be back any minute.

All Dean has to do is hold out.

So, much as he hates doing a single thing these bastards say, he doesn’t fight.

He lets them open up the bag, and he holds very still as they slide it over him, and he takes as many breaths as he can, deep, filling his lungs until they ache, until his blood is rich with oxygen, and then they’re knotting the bag above his head and that’s that.

He can see their vague outlines through the plastic, and wonders if he ought to try poke a hole in it. Could he do it without them noticing?

Doubtful. Even if he could, it’d have to be beneath him, and no air’s getting in there, certainly not enough to make the air he’d expend in the effort worth it.

Back to plan A. He stays still. Holds that air in his lungs as long as he can, because once it’s gone, he’s down to the air trapped in the bag with him and that won’t take long to use up.

But finally he has to exhale and he makes himself do it slow and even, and takes in another breath the same way. Holds that. Tries to think of anything but the way the plastic settles too close to his face, not clinging, not yet, but he can’t spare the air or effort to shake his head and clear it away.

He breathes out. Waits. Breathes in again.

He can hear them laughing, watching him. Watching him drag out every single second of time he has left, probably wondering why, if it’s just some desperate attempt to live as long as he can.

But they don’t know that Cas is coming.

That Dean’s been praying frantically to him, warning him, telling him he’s in big trouble.

Telling him to hurry.

All Dean has to do is give Cas time to reach him. So he keeps going, slow breath in, hold, slow breath out, hold, and…

He knows it’s inevitable that he’d at some point go to take another breath of air and come up empty, but it comes on him sudden, and he hacks, gasps, tries again, but what fills his lungs isn’t good.

He thrashes then, because the bag feels sucked in around him, a cloying film against his mouth and nose, if he can just shake it loose, maybe there’s still some oxygen he can get.

But he can’t. He thrashes, twists, it makes no difference. His head feels like it’s about to pop, his lungs are spasming, and it feels like he’s falling away, into fire, when somebody screams.

That’s the last thing Dean thinks he’ll ever hear, until hands are ripping open the bag, and lifting him up out of it, and he feels the soothing touch of Grace as Cas slaps his cheek.

“Dean. Dean!”

He coughs, loud, harsh, and sags into the angel’s hold, not bothering to look and see what happened to the guys who did this to him, who were standing there to watch him suffocate.

He doesn’t need to. 

All he needs to do is let Cas take care of him, which he does, holding still as Cas peels away the tape, and then sets Dean carefully on his feet.

“Dean.”

He starts to say he’s okay, but the words won’t come, because he’s not and he can’t just shove it down, deny it, like he has every other time, and he doesn’t know why, and-

“Dean.”

He doesn’t resist when Cas hugs him, pulls him in tight and holds on to him. From there, chin resting on the angel’s shoulder, he can see just what happened to the men who hurt him, and he feels a surge of hate for them that Cas must sense, because it’s answered with the gentle stroke of Cas’s Grace against him, soothing him.

When Cas leads him from the room, Dean follows without argument. Doesn’t say anything as Cas puts him to bed, and pulls up a chair, and stays there until Sam comes home.


End file.
